So let’s get this straight — It’s OK for Mittens to portray President Obama, falsely, as an enabler of welfare queens. It’s OK for Romney staffers to tell the Brits the President does not appreciate Anglo-saxon heritage (wink). But this remark by Vice President Biden —

Has been called out as a new low. A crossing of the political rhetorical Rubicon so extreme and so unprecedented that the entire Right and most of media are swooning in shock.

Andrew Rosenthal:

At an event in Danville, Va., Mr. Biden told a mostly African-American audience “Romney wants to let the—he said the first 100 days—he’s gonna let the big banks once against write their own rules. Unchain Wall Street. They gonna put y’all back in chains.”

Whether or not Mr. Biden meant to call slavery to mind, that’s certainly what he did, and Mr. Romney seized the opportunity to take umbrage. “Mr. President,” he said, “take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America.”

Jon Stewart has some thoughts on this …

Dana Milbank also seems to get it —

Forgive me, but I’m not prepared to join this walk down Great Umbrage Street just yet. Yes, it’s ugly out there. But is this worse than four years ago, when Obama was accused by the GOP vice presidential nominee of “palling around with terrorists”? Or eight years ago, when Democratic nominee John Kerry was accused of falsifying his Vietnam War record?

What’s different this time is that the Democrats are employing the same harsh tactics that have been used against them for so long, with so much success. They have ceased their traditional response of assuming the fetal position when attacked, and Obama’s campaign is giving as good as it gets — and then some.

All together now — Give ’em hell, Barry! And yesterday the President was given all kinds of opportunity to apologize for or distance himself from the “chains” remark, and he wouldn’t do it.

Mistermix makes a good point — and has more must-watch videos — at Balloon Juice. Soledad O’Brien at CNN did a masterful job taking John Sununu apart the other day when he tried to claim that the President “gutted” Medicare by $711 billion dollars. She was ready with the facts, and correctly explained what the CBO had actually said, and all Sununu could do is sputter the same talking points. Mistermix said,

I really do think the coddling they get on Fox is hurting the average Republican shill’s ability to appear reasonable on regular TV. Sununu just keeps repeating his weak-ass talking points instead of coming back with a follow-up, because Fox only expects its Republican guests to memorize and repeat what’s on the sheet that Sununu was waving around when he was trying to smack O’Brien down. Finally, there’s some limit to the number of lies the media will tolerate and that limit is probably being reached with the Romney campaign. There’s a general air of disrespect from the Romney people, they campaign almost totally on falsehoods, and they do so arrogantly. I think it’s the arrogance that finally triggered María de la Soledad Teresa O’Brien, and it’s going to be interesting to see who’s next.

Finally — all must worship the Goddess Aretha —